Google announced in the official blog that the Google Labs site would be closed. Some existing experimental products in the Labs would be ended, some to be incorporated into other product areas. Existing products already on Android Market would still be available. Google said this move is part of the strategy to prioritize product efforts. In an update about this news, Google clarified that in-product experimentation like Gmail Labs and Mpas Labs would not be affected.

Then how about the 20% time policy? Google employees have been allowed to spend 20% of their time on projects that aren’t part of the job descriptions. Many Google Labs projects such as Google Reader, Goggles, Maps and iGoogle were born due to this policy. A Google spokesperson told Mashable that there was no change to this policy since it was “a separate consideration from 20% time”.